Montmorillonite, a versatile clay mineral with a wide range of industrial applications, is often found in natural deposits with impurities that limit its effectiveness. This study investigates the use of column froth flotation as an innovative technique to improve the purity of montmorillonite by selectively removing impurities without affecting its essential properties. Column froth flotation, a well-established mineral separation method, is adapted to address the specific challenges associated with enhancing montmorillonite purity. The process involves conditioning raw montmorillonite with carefully chosen reagents to selectively separate impurities, including quartz, feldspar, and other minerals commonly found alongside montmorillonite in natural deposits. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of column froth flotation in significantly enhancing the purity of montmorillonite. This method allows for efficient impurity removal while preserving the essential properties of montmorillonite, making it suitable for various industrial applications. The study also explores the optimal conditions and reagent choices to maximize the purification process. In conclusion, column froth flotation offers a promising avenue for enhancing montmorillonite purity without compromising its fundamental properties. This study provides valuable insights into optimizing the process for large-scale industrial applications, facilitating the development of highquality montmorillonite products tailored to specific industrial needs.

To study the effect of inorganic electrolyte solution on graphite flotation, 19 kinds of inorganic electrolytes, including nitrate, chloride and sulfate were selected as experimental electrolytes. The flotation experiment was carried out on graphite and the contact angle and surface potential of the interaction between inorganic electrolyte solution and graphite were studied. The results show that flotation effect and flotation rate of the three ion valence inorganic electrolytes follow the order: nitrate < chloride < sulfate and univalent < bivalent < trivalent (except Ba(NO3)2 and Pb(NO3)2). When the ion valence are the same, the larger the ion atomic number, the better effect on graphite flotation. Cations in inorganic electrolyte solutions are the main factors affecting mineral flotation. When the cationic type and concentration are the same, different flotation effects are attributed to different anions. For low ion valence inorganic electrolyte solution with weak foaming effect, a certain dose of frother can be added appropriately to improve the flotation effect of graphite. The high ion valence inorganic electrolyte solution has strong foaming effect, and it is not necessary to add a frother. The principle of inorganic electrolyte solution promoting graphite flotation is analyzed from the aspects of liquid phase property, gas–liquid interface property, contact angle and surface potential. It is proved that inorganic electrolyte solution as flotation medium can promote the effective flotation of graphite.

In this study, for the treatment efficiency of the IGF process for the treatment of produced water (PW) discharged from the oil sands plant, the bench-scale oil sands plant PWT package was designed, manufactured and evaluated to verify the efficiency of the process. The microbubble generation efficiency and microbubble size change according to the circulation pump pressure were observed, and the correlation between influent concentration and temperature, residence time and oil-water separation performance was analyzed.

Spirulina platensis is a unique photosynthetic cyanobacterium that is used as a commercial feed for animals and a dietary supplement for humans. S. platensis has significant auto-flotation activity due to its gas vesicles. The natural flotation activity of these cells provides an effective method for harvesting of Spirulina biomass. The present research found that hydrodynamic pressure, light level and bicarbonate concentration affected the natural flotation of S. platensis. In particular, auto-flotation increased as light level decreased (5.5-times greater at no supplemental light than at 300 μ㏖ photons/㎡/s), as bicarbonate level increased (5-times higher at 0.6 than 0.2 M) and as hydrodynamic pressure decreased (indicated by depth of the culture). These results should be considered when designing photobioreactors for direct harvesting by auto-flotation.

Eutrophication and algal blooms can lead to increase of taste and odor compounds and health problems by cyanobacterial toxins. To cope with these eco-social issues, Ministry of Environment in Korea has been reinforcing the effluent standards of wastewater treatment facilities. As a result, various advanced phosphorus removal processes have been adopted in each wastewater treatment plant nation-widely. However, a lot of existing advanced wastewater treatment processes have been facing the problems of expensive cost in operation and excessive sludge production caused by high dosage of coagulant. In this study, the sedimentation and dissolved air flotation (SeDAF) process integrated with sedimentation and flotation has been developed for enhanced phosphorus removal in wastewater treatment facilities. Design and operating parameters of the SeDAF process with the capacity of 100 m3/d were determined, and a demonstration plant has been installed and operated at I wastewater treatment facility (located in Gyeonggi-do) for the verification of field applicability. Several empirical evaluations for the SeDAF process were performed at demonstration-plant scale, and the results showed clearly that T-P and turbidity values of treated water were to satisfy the highest effluent standards below 0.2 mg/L and 2.0 NTU stably for all of operation cases.

To remove phosphorus from the effluent of public wastewater treatment facilities, hundreds of enhanced phosphorus treatment processes have been introduced nationwide. However, these processes have a few problems including excessive maintenance cost and sludge production caused by inappropriate coagulant injection. Therefore, the optimal decision of coagulant dosage and automatic control of coagulant injection are essential. To overcome the drawbacks of conventional phosphorus removal processes, the integrated sedimentation and dissolved air flotation(SeDAF) process has been developed and a demonstration plant(capacity: 100 m3/d) has also been installed. In this study, various jar-tests(sedimentation and / or sedimentation·flotation) and multiple regression analyses have been performed. Particularly, we have highlighted the decision–making algorithms of optimal coagulant dosage to improve the applicability of the SeDAF process. As a result, the sedimentation jar-test could be a simple and reliable method for the decision of appropriate coagulant dosage in field condition of the SeDAF process. And, we have found that the SeDAF process can save 30 – 40% of coagulant dosage compared with conventional sedimentation processes to achieve total phosphorus (T-P) concentration below 0.2 mg/L of treated water, and it can also reduce same portion of sludge production.

In recent years there have been large increases in the hydraulic loading rates used to design dissolved air flotation (DAF) facilities for drinking water applications. High rate DAF processes are now available at loading rates of 20 to 40 m3/m2·h. This research evaluated dissolved air flotation as a separation method for algae and organic compounds from water treatment plants. During the service period of 2016. 5. to 2017. 6., DAF pilot plants (500 m3/day) process has shown a constantly sound performance for the treatment of raw water, yielding a significantly low level of turbidity (DAF treated water, 0.21～1.56 NTU). As a result of analyzing the algae cell counts in the influent source, it was expressed at 100-120 cells/mL. In DAF treated water, the removal efficient of alge cell counts was found to be upto 90%. The stable turbidity and algae removal were confirmed by operating the high rate DAF process under the condition of the surface loading rate of 30 m3/m2·hr.

In this study, we divided the process operation scenarios into three categories based on raw water temperature and turbidity. We will select and operate the process operation scenario according to the characteristics of the raw water. The number of algae in the DAF treated water has been analyzed to be less than 100 cells/mL. These results indicated that the DAF process is effective in removing the algae. In addition, the scenario of the integrated management decision algorithm of the DAF process was developed. DAF pilot plants (500 m3/day) process has shown a constantly sound performance for the treatment of raw water, yielding a significantly low level of turbidity (DAF treated water, 0.21~1.56 NTU).

In the coagulation/sedimentation (C/S) process of the water treatment process, the inflow of massive algal bloom causes many problems including fouling of filter media. This study was conducted to find out the way to remove the algae’s harmful effects by addition of pre-treatment prior to C/S process. Many Jar-tests were conducted such as ① ACF (Algae Coagulation·Flotation) process using natural algae coagulant (Water Health®), ② ACF + C/S process and ③ C/S process with a variety of conditions using cultured algae. The average values of turbidity were ① 0.42 NTU for ACF process, ② 0.13 NTU for ACF + C/S process and ③ 0.25 NTU for C/S process. It was shown that the treatment efficiency of ACF process could get low turbidity results, and ACF + C/S process could achieve more efficient results than those of C/S process. Any negative effects of ACF process to the efficiency of C/S process were not observed in ACF + C/S process. In order to reduce the unfavorable effects of algae, it was found out that the introduction of ACF process in the forms of ① ACF or ② ACF + C/S could be one of the effective and alternative solutions.

Response surface methodology (RSM) based on a Box-Behnken Design (BBD) was applied to optimize the thermal-alkaline pre-treatment operating conditions for anaerobic digestion of flotation scum in food waste leachate. Three independent variables such as thermal temperature, NaOH concentration and reaction time were evaluated. The maximum methane production of 369.2 mL CH4/g VS was estimated under the optimum conditions at 62.0°C, 10.1% NaOH and 35.4 min reaction time. A confirmation test of the predicted optimum conditions verified the validity of the BBD with RSM. The analysis of variance indicated that methane production was more sensitive to both NaOH concentration and thermal temperature than reaction time. Thermal-alkaline pretreatment enhanced the improvement of 40% in methane production compared to the control experiment due to the effective hydrolysis and/or solubilization of organic matters. The fractions with molecular weight cut-off of scum in food waste leachate were conducted before and after pre-treatment to estimate the behaviors of organic matters. The experiment results found that thermal-alkaline pre-treatment could reduce the organic matters more than 10kD with increase the organic matters less than 1kD.

Froth flotation has been carried out in order to produce roasting-molybdenite concentrate from molybdenite ore in the Shin-yeomi mine. In our study, roasting-molybdenite (Mo 0.43%) from Shin-yeomi mine was recovered by varying the conditions of regrinding time, dosage of collector and alkalinity. Liberation and flotation efficiency more were effective at regrinding time of six minutes than at single grinding. Mo recovery curves increased considerably as dosage of kerosene increased, whereas Mo grade curves decreased gradually. The separation efficiency of molybdenite was effective when the dosage of collector (kerosene) was adjusted to 300 g/t. The molybdenite concentrate was agglomerated in the range of pH 5-7 and its separation efficiency increased to pH 9-10. The concentrate of 49.5% Mo grade (MoS2, 82.6%) with 81.5% recovery from Shin-yeomi molybdenite ores was obtained under conditions of 20% pulp concentration, 300 g/t kerosene 325 g/t frother (AF65), 2.5 kg/t depressant (Na2SiO3), pH 9-10 and four cleaning times. In the future, a trial run that can separate up to 50% Mo grade from Shin-yeomi molybdenite ores will be performed.

This study used a batch DAF (dissolved air flotation) jar tester to evaluate the algae removal efficiency of alum and PAC coagulants during coagulation, flocculation, and flotation. Optimal coagulant dosages were 0.06 ~ 0.15 mL/L (12.0 ~ 26.0 mg Al/L,17%), 0.08 ~ 0.20 mL/L (10.0 ~ 24.0 mg Al/L, 12%), 0.25 ~ 0.30 mL/L (25.0 ~ 30.0 mg Al/L, 10%) for PAC, and 3.0 ~ 5.0 mL/L (81.0 ~ 135.0 mg Al/L, 2.7%) for alum. Turbidity of treated water was 1.0 ~ 2.0 NTU in optimal coagulation, flocculation, and flotation conditions for the four coagulants types. The amount of coagulant injected tended to decrease with increasing Al content in the coagulant, as follows : 17% PAC < 12% PAC < 10% PAC < 2.7% alum. Turbidity removal efficiencies were in the order of 12% PAC (93.6%) > 10% PAC (92.7%) > 17% PAC (91.3%) > 2.7% Alum (88.1%).

The Electrocoagulation-Flotation (ECF) process has great potential in wastewater treatment. ECF technology is effective in the removal of colloidal particles, oil-water emulsion, organic pollutants such as microalgae, and heavy metals. Numerous studies have been conducted on ECF; however, many of them used a conventional plate-type aluminum anode. In this study, we determined the effect of changing operational parameters such as power supply time, applied current, NaCl concentration, and pH on the turbidity removal efficiency of kaoline. We also determined the effects of different electrolyte types (NaCl, MgSO4, CaCl2, Na2SO4, and tap water), as well as the differences caused by using a plate-type and mesh-type aluminum anode, on the turbidity removal efficiency. The results showed that the optimal values of ECF time, applied current, NaCl concentration, and pH were 5 min, 0.35 A, 0.4 g/L NaCl in distilled water, and pH 7, respectively. The results also revealed that the turbidity removal efficiency of kaoline in different electrolytes decreased in the following sequence, given the same conductivity: tap water > CaCl2 > MgSO4 > NaCl > Na2SO4. The turbidity removal efficiency of the mesh-type aluminum anode was significantly greater than the plate-type aluminum anode.

Despite the low removal efficiencies reported by previous studies, electro-flotation still stands out among other microalgae removal methods for its economical and environmental benefits. To enhance removal efficiency, the important factors that limit the performance of this method must be investigated. In this study, the possible ways of increasing the removal efficiency of microalgae have been explored by investigating the effects of several important variables in electro-flotation. Eight parameters, namely flotation time, rising time, current density, pH, conductivity, electrode distance, temperature and initial concentration were evaluated using a one-parameter-at-a-time approach. Results revealed that the operational parameters that greatly affected the removal efficiency of microalgae were electro-flotation time, current density, pH, and initial concentration. The effect of conductivity, electrode distance, and temperature on removal efficiency were insignificant. However, they exhibited positive an indirect positive effect on power demand, which is nowadays considered an equally important aspect in the running of a feasible and economically efficient electro-flotation process.

The sludge flotation/thickening apparatus equipped a micro-bubble generating pump was used to investigate micro-bubble generating properties on operational parameters. We evaluated micro-bubble generating properties as results to be operated the apparatus by operational parameters which are pump discharge pressure, air/water ratio(A/W ratio), air flow rate, and water flow rate. Micro-bubble generating efficiencies in pumps without recycling flow and with 50% of recycling flow was found to be very efficient on optimum A/W ratio from 1.06 to 3.62% and optimum A/W ratio from 1.05 to 4.06%, respectively. In condition of 3.6% of A/W ratio, we showed that the apparatus could be generated 36,000 ppm of micro-bubble concentration to be optimum treatment efficiency in sludge thickening process.

본 연구에서는 경북 울진 보암광산의 리튬광을 대상으로 고품위 리튬 정광 생산을 위한 부유선별 연구를 수행하였다. 리튬의 근원광물은 Lepidolite (0.99% Li2O)이며, 주요 맥석광물은 SiOX를 포함하는 규산염 광물(quartz, muscovite)과 방해석(Calcite)이 존재하였다. 따라서 음이온포수제를 이용하여 방해석을 먼저 부유시켜 제거하고, 규산염 광물을 억제하고 리튬 광물을 부유시키는 공정을 적용하였다. 리튬광물 부유선별에서 포수제는 아민계통의 양이온 포수제(Armac-T, Armac-C, Armafloat-18, Armafloat-1597) 중 Armac-T가 가장 효과적이었다. 실험결과 최적 조건인 포수제(Armac-T) 100g/t, 기포제(AF65) 50g/t, 억제제(Na2SiO3) 600g/t, (Lactic acid) 100g/t, 광액농도 20%solids, pH 5.5 그리고 정선횟수 2회에서 Li2O의 품위와 회수율이 각각 4.33%와 80.3%인 결과를 얻었다.

Coagulation, flocculation, and dissolved air flotation (DAF) experiments were performed with humic acid to evaluate the influence of operational conditions on removal efficiencies. We investigated coagulation, flocculation, and flotation conditions of humic acid removal using a laboratory-scale DAF system. This paper deals with coagulant type (aluminum sulfate and PSO-M) and the most relevant operational conditions (velocity gradients for coagulation and flocculation, retention time and recycle ratio and flotation time). Results showed that optimal conditions for removing humic acid, yielding CHA removal efficiencies of approximately 85 %, are a recycle ratio of 40 %, coagulant dosages of 0.15 – 0.20 gAl/gHA as aluminum sulfate and 0.03 – 0.12 gAl/gHA as PSO-M, coagulation(400s-1 and 60s), flocculation(60s-1 and 900s or more), and flotation(490 kPa or more and at least 10 min).

This study found that flotation efficiencies for removing algae and micro particles in raw water were optimized on mixing intensity and time of the mixing and flocculation conditions with a continuous DAF system. It is more efficient for mixing intensity at 23.1 s-1 and time at 660 s(Gt value : 15246) to float flocculated floc with the raw water in M water treatment plant. Flotation efficiency was more than about 0.9 when operated pressure and A/S ratio were sustained at 5 kgf․cm-2 and up to 0.056 mL․mg-1. The continuous DAF system made by the study could be continuously operated for 20 days and sustained not exceeding 4 NTU with raw water with low turbidity(13.4 ～ 9.8 NTU).